In what was little more than a campaign press release for Pat Quinn, Abner Mikva wrote in the Chicago Tribune that "Gov. Pat Quinn and the Illinois legislature accomplished a near miracle when they successfully negotiated the ‘third rail’ of Illinois politics: a meaningful reform of state pension laws." Mr. Mikva made it clear that he thinks the Illinois Constitution effectively prohibits the legislature from cutting the pension benefits that current employees will earn in the future. Mr. Mikva may be right, but his lavish praise of the Governor and the legislature for a reform that only reduces benefits for employees that haven’t been hired yet is misplaced – for several reasons.
If the current wording Illinois Constitution truly does prevent the state from reducing benefits that current employees will earn in the future, then the Constitution needs to be changed. Mr. Mikva seems to be assuming it would be too hard to change the Constitution and that we can’t expect the legislature to do that. But why? Are the public employees’ unions more important than the citizens of the state? Why should public employees’ pensions be entitled to money ahead of hospitals and schools and private social service agencies helping the poor?
If pension reform is a "third rail," it’s only because the legislature, where Mike Madigan has been Speaker of the House since 1996 and the Senate has been Democratic since 2002, has given in to the public employees’ unions time after time. Also, why should we be congratulating the legislature for a reform that makes a very small dent in a problem that the legislature itself has created over the past decade and more by promising pensions (and pension increases) without properly funding them?
Clearly a constitutional amendment would be a battle. Public employees and their unions would fight hard for their special treatment, treatment that very few other people in Illinois have. So what we need to do is make it clear to the voters just how much these pensions are costing us. Every allocation of state money that covers public employee salaries should also include, in that allocation, the money to cover the pension accrual for those employees. For example, state money going to schools would need to cover the pension costs for the teachers. Money going to the Department of Natural Resources would have to cover the pension accruals for the state parks. And the pension costs would have to be paid first. The schools or the state parks would only be able to spend what was left after a proper accrual for pensions was made. If there was not enough money left after paying for pension costs, then they would have to cut employees, cut services, cut classes, because the pensions would come first. And let me make it clear that I am not talking about pensions for employees who have already retired, or even pension credits that public employees have earned for service they have already put in. I am talking about costs for pensions that current employees will earn in the future, costs which Mr. Mikva says we can’t cut. Let’s make it clear what state services have to be cut, what parks have to be closed, what teachers have to be fired, to pay for those pensions. If that is what the people of Illinois want to do, that is fine. But don’t hide it. And don’t say, in effect, the public employees’ unions are more important than the people of Illinois.
Two final comments on Mr. Mikva’s article: First, the article mentions Mr. Mikva was a federal judge, state lawmaker and member of Congress. That means Mr. Mikva is getting three public pensions – and that assumes he isn’t getting one for his service as White House Counsel under President Clinton.
Second, Mr. Mikva says: "I don’t recall a previous governor who put any real effort into pension reform." In about 1995 Jim Edgar pushed for and got the legislature to adopt a plan that would have, over time, greatly reduced the underfunding of the Illinois pension system. But after the Democrats regained control of the Illinois House (and later the Senate) and once Governor Edgar left office, the legislature and the governor (including, to my embarrassment, Republican George Ryan) abandoned the plan, figuring, I guess, that spending for the present was more fun than responsible planning for the future.
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